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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S5W-15437

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has undertaken regarding (a) the costs and (b) any social benefits of medical facilities partnering with ride-sharing companies to provide transportation to and from appointments.

The Scottish Government does not facilitate non emergency transport to healthcare facilities. This is a matter for individual frontline NHS Boards, in conjunction with the Scottish Ambulance Service and local authorities.

There are also a number of community based initiatives to provide hospital transport to patients throughout Scotland and it is a matter for individual operators to decide what types of services they offer.

Question reference: S5W-15455

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on hospital transportation, excluding ambulances, in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board area.

Question reference: S5W-15441

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people use ride-sharing apps to travel to and from medical appointments.

Question reference: S5W-15456

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much it estimates it will spend in each of the next five years on non-emergency medical travel.

Question reference: S5W-15454

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what cost-benefit analysis it has undertaken regarding subsidies for all travel to and from hospitals.

Question reference: S5W-15448

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people made claims for refunds of transportation costs to hospitals through the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme in 2017, and what the total value was of these claims.

Question reference: S5W-15440

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost was of patient taxis for non-emergency medical transport in 2017.

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. Individual Boards are responsible for paying for or reimbursing the cost of patient travel, in accordance with their own patients’ travelling expenses scheme and within their overall baseline budgets, which are increasing by 3.7% in 2018-19 for frontline Boards.

Boards are required to make best use of resources, including setting policies on the most appropriate and cost effective means of patient transport whilst ensuring that patient care and safety is at the centre of all decisions made.

Question reference: S5W-15446

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people it estimates face transportation barriers when accessing healthcare.

The Scottish Government has ensured that there are a range of options available to patients requiring either clinical or financial travel assistance.

This includes the Patient Transport Service provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service for those requiring clinical assistance and, for those requiring financial assistance, the Patient Travelling Expenses Scheme and the specific Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme. In addition, all Health Boards have the discretion to reimburse patient traveling expenses where it is viewed to be an extension of treatment costs and deemed to be clinically necessary.

There are also a number of community based initiatives to provide hospital transport to patients and some Health and Social Care Partnerships link with voluntary organisations or community groups to provide transport.

Question reference: S5O-01885

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 15 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the resilience of the transport network to adverse winter weather.

Whilst we know severe weather will cause disruption, this Government has taken a wide range of steps to assess and improve our resilience to the challenges of winter, to mitigate its impacts and to recover our transport networks and get businesses and daily life back to normal as quickly as possible. This has been done in partnership with a broad range of public, private and third sector partners and has included new investment, development and innovation - all learning the lessons from recent winters.

Question reference: S5W-14847

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many trains on the ScotRail network will reach the end of their lease by August 2018; how many carriages will be taken out of service because of this, and what contingency measures it will introduce to mitigate any capacity reductions.

ScotRail is working to address all necessary technical issues to allow the introduction of class 385 Hitachi trains onto Edinburgh - Glasgow services in the coming months. In addition, four fully refurbished and longer High Speed Trains (HSTs) will gradually be introduced on the Aberdeen to Edinburgh inter-city route across the summer. This is part of the plan to expand the ScotRail fleet by more than 200 more carriages over the next 15 months.

Lease end dates of all rolling stock in the ScotRail fleet is contained within the publically available Franchise Agreement, and this is due to be updated through the regular Variation process to reflect revised lease end dates and newly acquired fleets. ScotRail continues to work hard to ensure that adequate capacity is provided between Edinburgh and Glasgow in light of Hitachi delays.